


Maker, Where Did It All Go Wrong?

by Angel_Trent



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: Alistair's dumb sense of humour is still there, Angst, Cousland is a major asshole, Disappointment, Gen, Slight Canon Divergence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-09
Updated: 2015-12-09
Packaged: 2018-05-05 20:05:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5388524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Angel_Trent/pseuds/Angel_Trent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A little drabble about Alistair sitting in the cave in Crestwood reflecting upon the train wreck that is his life.</p><p>Slight canon divergence on the account of him not being a Senior Warden in the one-shot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Maker, Where Did It All Go Wrong?

As Alistair sat by the fire, listening to the howling wind oudside, his thoughts wandered off. To prevent the pounding of the Calling inside of his skull, Alistair decided to, once again, dig deep in his memory and figure out where it has all gone wrong. Quite a strange choice but his life had been one big disappointment, pretty much since the end of the Fifth Blight. The more time passed, the less happy - go - lucky Alistair was becoming, till one morning he rolled out of bed and wished a ceiling had fallen on him. Or something. At least he still had his sense of humour but even that was becoming more dreadful by the minute.

As soon as they wiped the archdemon brains off their faces, Artemis Cousland was declared the hero that saved Ferelden and the pitiful remains of Denerim’s inhabitants carried him away. The rest of the party was left to clean up the mess and guard the carcass of the Archdemon. The wardens took their sweet time to regroup and by the time they were ready to take the body away, only Alistair and Barkspawn remained, dutifully chasing away the half-feral dogs and an occasional beggar, who thought that eating some of the blighted dragon is not the worst idea he had ever had. Cousland and Alistair never saw eye to eye, even less so when the bastard poisoned the Urn of Sacred Ashes and slaughtered Leliana, who loved him, yet dared to oppose his decision. So when Alistair heard that, through some machinations, the vain shit had landed himself a title of a king he cursed it all, said goodbye to the people he had started to call friends, whisked away Barkspawn and left Denerim with the rest of the Grey Wardens.

At first the Warden Life was great. Now that the Archdemon was dead, the frequent nightmares had stopped and Alistair spent his days training, as any other new recruit has to, dead Archdemon or not. Wardens around him wanted to know more about the fight and Alistair was happy to oblige, sometimes adding a juicy detail or two. He, of course, never dared to imply killing the Archdemon himself, like Cousland did. Sure, the man had landed the final blow but how far would he go without his party’s support? How many mages, wardens were asking. The formation? The spells and the tactics used? Obviously, in the haze of the battle, Alistair had not seen all of it and finally wardens lost interest. Since he was not the one to heroically kick the dragon in the face, he was not Warden - Commander, Maker, not even a Senior Warden material. Soon the days started to blend together but at least Alistair was allowed to leave and explore the great unknown, recruiting fresh meat and killing darkspawn that went out for a whiff of fresh air. 

Finally, one day, while on a mission to investigate some highly suspicious darkspawn activity, Alistair found himself in Kirkwall. In the middle of Qunari invasion for that was _just. his. bloody. luck._ There he had rather charming, albeit quick encounter with Serena Hawke. Lovely lady, really. Smart and yet constantly busy sawing off the branch she was sitting on. And setting it on fire. Frankly, he felt her on the spirit level. Surprisingly, the mission he was on involved red lyrium, and the news from Kirkwall were of the same phenomenon and thus Alistair contacted Hawke once again. They exchanged information back and forth for a while, till one day he unrolled the parchment and read a message that made his skin crawl. Hawke, bless her ignorant soul, broke into an old Grey Warden prison, _unleashed_ an ancient evil that claimed to be one of the seven Magisters that entered the Golden City and, as she claimed, killed it. Only Alistair was not so certain. Slowly and carefully he started researching, keeping appearances as much as possible, for Grey Wardens had ears everywhere. It took him quite a while but as the information piled up, it seemed less and less likely that the darkspawn, Corypheus, was truly dead. On top of this delightful mess, the order started to show cracks from within and no-one could pinpoint the source. 

And if all _that_ was not enough, one night pretty much everyone woke up bellowing for they _all_ started to hear the Calling. It was a scary night. Alistair, who felt half crazy himself and just witnessed someone slashing open their veins down the hallway, crawled under the bed, tears rolling down his cheeks. He knew this was not right, it was not his time yet. But the Calling was so strong it was hard to think. In the morning at least dozen Grey Wardens were found dead, and the ones who managed to withstand, called an emergency meeting. In the absense of the Warden - Commander of Ferelden, a call was made to contact the wardens of Orlais. Clarel, the head of the order over there, proposed a drastic measure she had been mulling over - blood magic and the demon army to send off to the Deep Roads and end the darkspawn. Then end the remaining Old Gods, so that when the wardens die, the world will be forever saved from the Blight. Alistair was no genious, as Morrigan never failed to point out, but this stank to high heavens. Several wardens, including himself, had the gall to publicly oppose Clarel and soon enough, several of his brothers met a grizzly end under some very suspicious circumstances. Alistair’s self-preservation instinct was his best feature and so he ran as fast as he could, stealing Clarel’s horse in the process because, frankly, it was a fast and beautiful steed. And he _really_ could use one of those Dalish-breeds right now. Wardens were quick to respond and suddenly instead of ‘Alistair, there are darkspawn in me barn’ he became ‘Ser Alistair of Ferelden, wanted alive or dead for treason. Master swordsman, execute extreme caution.’ Obviously one has to become a traitor to be acknowledged. Funny how the will of the Maker works its magic. 

A sound of footsteps had echoed somewhere near the entrance. Alistair jumped up, grabbed his shield and a sword and hid behind a stalagmite.

“Alistair, I brought the Inquisitor. There are only the two of us.”

**Author's Note:**

> I thought Alistair had always been a man-child, even after his hardening (12 year old had just snickered right now) In my canon playthrough he ended as a king but I did enjoy to see him as a warden - more mature and, almost fleetingly, bitter.
> 
> I had imagined him not liking Warden life any more he would enjoy being a templar, once the romantic feel of helping against the Blight wears off.


End file.
